Of Ampersands and Cats: Artist Spotlight: Kruttika Susarla

Who are you?

I’m an illustrator and a graphic designer living and working out of New Delhi. I’m also a slave to my cats, Vector and Raster and a full-time online stalker. You can see my portfolio here and my blog here. (Yes, I post things besides cat pictures.)

How would you introduce your work to our readers?

Recently, I’ve been working on a lot of websites, logos, an app and a little bit of publication design. I usually try and work on projects where there is a scope for an illustrated approach to the design. In my personal time, I go and sketch outdoors. I enjoy drawing people. I’ve also been drawing ampersands (&) recently. I also make silly animated gifs and short webcomics when I’ve had too much paneer.

What are the tools you use to create art?

I mostly use Photoshop and my Wacom Bamboo to create most of my illustrations. I enjoy making my own brushes in photoshop. For every illustration I work on, I try and create a new brush. Working on Illustrator first and then taking it to Photoshop, to add depth and some final touches like textures, etc, is something I’ve been trying recently. For my sketchbook, I love using brush pens. I don’t have a liking for any particular brand of brush pens because every brush pen I’ve used gives a very different kind of consistency/texture and I enjoy mixing, matching and experimenting to see what I like.

What are your influences?

I’ve grown up reading a lot of Amar Chitra Katha, Champak, Tinkle and generally any other book that had more pictures than text, haha. This has been a major influence in deciding to take up illustration in my final year at design school too. Some designers and illustrators I really look up to and am inspired by: Jessica Hische, Erik Spiekermann, Loish, Tad Carpenter, Colin Jack and Craig Thompson.

How do you interpret art?

I’m not sure about how to answer this. I don’t think I get art really or maybe I don’t think about it too much; I look at it’s face value. Then again, I really appreciate work of artists like Subodh Gupta who can really put the context out there and make it really easy for anyone to understand what they’re trying to communicate. This is something I try to achieve in my own work as well.

How would you define your relationship with sloth- the “sin”, not the animal?